Spring and What Pruning Does to Plants
As the name implies: spring is the season where the life force in plants start springing upward from the cold of winter. It is most prevalently seen now in your bulbs flowering, and deciduous plants starting to bud/leaf out.
This is a good time of year for pruning trees and shrubs. When you prune in early spring, you can see the whole structure because no leaves (or at minimum, they are just folding out) skew the view. This makes pruning easier, especially for total restructurings. Except for evergreen plants, they are green/leafed out all year round when they are healthy.
Spring is also a good time for planting projects.
What Pruning Does To Plants
Pruning cleanses a plant. It frees up where the structure has started to overlap in ways that degrade the movement of energy, that in-turn suppresses outbound growth, and blocks the full range of flow that particular plant has.
Foundations for Pruning Excellence
First: make sure all your pruning tools are clean and sharp before starting your project. This makes for cleaner cuts and ease of cuts.
Start at the base of your tree/shrub, removing any suckers that may be growing there. Remove any debris or dirt piled up on the feeder roots at the base if they are buried too low. Remember that trees and shrubs planted too low in the ground is one of the major causes of plant health problems. No amount of pruning, soil amending, watering, or fertilizing can fix this. Planting trees and shrubs is something that should be done right from the start to avoid this problem.
Next: work your way up pruning branch-by-branch, feeling out each cut step-by-step. If you are unsure about any cuts, stop and take a step away from your work and look at the entire structure so you can see the bigger picture before you make the next cut.
Check for signs of disease and pull off any moss as you are working your way to the top. The crab-apple tree above is a good example of how a tree should look after being pruned.
Your goal in being a great pruner is to direct and shape the structure so it is balanced, open, beautiful, and supportive of the unique plant you are working with. You are crafting space for it to grow freely, both within it's own system and in relational space to its neighboring plants, and other physical structures like your house.
You can also start at the top and work your way down. This makes cleanup easier because you work with gravity, where the cuttings fall as you work your way down to the ground. It depends on how overgrown your plant structure is. Sometimes pruning from the top down isn't possible, because you've got to prune an opening to even get to the top.
I learned how to prune by doing it, and seeing how the plant I'm working with flows inside of the unique ecology of each garden I work in. I go through the entire plant with care and precision, working with every branch within the context of the whole structure.
Here is a testimonial to the quality of my craftsmanship and service.
"I’ve been working with James since 2016. He’s been one of the main people who has helped revive the garden around my 25-year-old home. James has a strong work ethic and is very professional in both the way he writes up his bids before projects, and then follows through completely with everything he’s agreed to do.
The icing on the cake for me is that James really has an artist’s eye when it comes to pruning. Even with overgrown bushes that other gardeners write off and feel should just be removed, James sees something worth saving and goes to work on them. With his care and patience, a beautiful bush emerges that suddenly becomes a focal point in your garden. I’ve worked with a number of gardeners in the last couple years, but James is one of only a few whom I call on again and again when I want things done well and done right."
Susan Henderson
Ashland, OR
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